


defining moment

by owlvsdove



Series: runaways au [2]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Multi, Runaways AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-22
Updated: 2014-09-22
Packaged: 2018-02-18 09:43:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 9,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2343923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/owlvsdove/pseuds/owlvsdove
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After escaping their supervillain parents, Skye, Jemma, Fitz, and Ward make it across the country to freedom. But it turns out freedom costs money. Skye comes up with a plan to get some cash that just might work, but...let's be real. It probably won't work. </p><p>[Runaways AU]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. means to an end

 

“So what are we doing in here exactly?”

Skye sighs. “I’m going to set up a fake account at the local bank and then wire funds from my dad’s old offshore accounts to it. Just enough cash to get us a place to stay.”

Fitz shifts nervously. “You know the information for your dad’s secret accounts?”

“Yeah, I’m good like that.”

“Won’t we have to go to a bank to get the money out?”

Her lips purse, like she doesn’t want to let something out. “Yes, but I plan on taking Jemma in with me.”

Fitz’s eyes widen. “No.”

She stops typing and turns to him. “I probably won’t even need her, but…it’s the only way to be certain.”

“You don’t understand—”

“I know I don’t! And I know she hates it. But we  _have to_  do this. And she can smooth things over if they get  _bumpy_.” They need this money so they could stop living out of the van. So they could pay for new identities and new lives. This is essential.

“Did you tell Jemma?”

“No.”

“Did you tell Ward?”

“No.”

“So basically you woke up this morning, said  _I have a plan_ , and made us drive to an internet cafe based on the idea that you could trick us into agreeing later?”

“Yes?”

“Oh,  _bloody hell_.”

 

 

 

“They’ve been in there a long time,” Jemma says, sinking into the passenger seat. Technically they’ve only been in there twenty-three minutes, and she knows Ward is hyper-aware of that fact, but she says it anyway.

He only grunts in response.

“I think maybe I’ll just go in and—”

“No,” he insists.

“But—”

“We have to let them work,” he says, although she can tell by his face that he would really like to go in as well.

They settle into silence for a long moment. But it doesn’t last.

“I’m just gonna go in and—”

“Jemma.”

“Would you rather you go in and leave me out here alone?” She asks, knowing already what the answer is.

He sighs, then grumbles: “Fine.”

She hops in her seat, satisfied, and then climbs over the seat rest so she can grab her jacket. But she stumbles out the back doors in overeagerness and falls directly into a stranger.

“Oh, sorry!” she winces. The guy helps her pick herself up.

“You alright?” he asks.

“Jemma?” Ward calls, twisting uncomfortably in the front seat to try and see if she’s okay.

“I’m fine,” she calls back to him. “I’m fine,” she repeats to the guy in front of her. He’s smiling. Wide. It’s a very nice smile.

“Are you sure? No broken bones? I just learned how to set those.” He’s joking. She thinks.

“No, I’m okay.”

“Maybe I could walk you to wherever you’re going, so you don’t fall again.”

Bloody hell, that was smooth. His brain feels bright. And strong. He’s peeking around her shoulder (can you call it peeking if he’s a foot taller than her?) to look at Ward, and she wonders if he can tell that they’re living in the van. She shuts one of the doors quickly, leaving one open so Ward can hear. Just in case.

“Um,” she says, and already Ward has probably what imagined the fallout of her disastrous attempt at lying will be. “That’s alright, really. I’m just going over there, so. I am very busy. With working. So. No, thank you.”

“Jemma,” Ward warns, alarmed.

“Your boyfriend seems a little antsy,” He says with a grin.

“He’s my brother,” she says quickly, because that is the lie Ward practiced with her.

“I’m Trip,” the guy says, sticking out his hand.

“Jemma,” she says, taking it.

“I got that.”

“Jem?” Skye and Fitz seem to appear out of nowhere, walking quickly up to them.

“And who’s this?” Skye continues, putting herself deliberately between the stranger and Jemma, playing at flirty a little too obviously.

“Trip,” he introduces himself again, and they shake hands too, weirdly formal.

Fitz is glued to Jemma’s side.

“Did Skye get what she wanted?” Jemma asks quietly, while Skye chatters inanely (and quite loudly) with their new acquaintance.

He nods slowly, eyes seeming guarded while hers were naked with panic. “Yeah, but I don’t think you’re going to like it.”

She quirks her head in confusion, but he doesn’t answer, and her panic rises a little more. If he notices when she presses closer to his side, he doesn’t say anything.

“Do you know any good apartments around here?” Skye is asking. “Somewhere super swanky and big.”

“Super swanky?” Trip plays along.

“Oh yeah. Can’t you tell? I’m an heiress to a large tire empire.”

“Tire empire?”

“Tire empire,” she confirms. “My great-great-great-great-great-grandfather invented them.”

“Invented the tire?”

“Duh,” She scoffs. “Anyway, Jemma here is the heir to the throne of a small island nation called Dorkopolis. Oh, and you know Doogie Howser?”

“The TV show?”

“It was based off my friend Fitz here. He’s loaded too.”

“And what about your brother back there?” Trip asks, tilting his chin at Ward, who was pretending not to listen.

“He’s our bodyguard. We’re very important, so he protects us.” She shrugs. This feels a little too close to the truth for Skye’s extreme, so she steers away. “Anyway, we’re very rich and we need somewhere to live. Got any ideas?”

“Sorry, I’m not actually from around here,” he says easily.

“Where are you from then, Trip?”

“I go to school a few towns over. I was just telling Jemma here that I’m getting medical training. I’m just here for the day, though; sorry I can’t be more helpful.”

“Useless,” she pokes, but he doesn’t seem offended, just grinning wider. “Well it was nice chatting with you, but I’m afraid we’re very busy and must be on our way.” Her voice is getting more and more cartoonishly haughty. The stakes are pretty low, so she lets herself go wild.

His eyes flicker over the three of them, and then he pulls a scrap of paper out of his pocket. “In case you ever need anything,” and he says it slightly too knowingly. He definitely saw the inside of the van. “You know, since you’re new to the area.”

He holds out the number to Fitz, for some reason, and leaves them with a smile.

Fitz flips the paper over in his hands. “So…who was that?”

Jemma flounders for a moment. “I was climbing out of the van to get you and I sort of crashed into him.”

“Well now we have his number.”

“Sweet,” Skye says.

“Will you three get in the van, please?” Ward says tersely. He sounds like he wanted to leave off the  _please_. When Jemma climbs into the passenger side, she can see he’s on edge.

“It’s fine,” Skye says from over his shoulder, poking his arm. “We’ll never see that guy again.”

Ward peels out without another word.

 


	2. lies (skye)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> FLASHBACK: Miles must be a fucking idiot to let her dig through those files.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So the even numbered chapters are flashbacks, one for each of the four.

 

“What are we still doing here?”

“Relax, fuckwit. This is a necessary step in the plan.”

Miles comes up behind her and presses a quick kiss to her neck. “Let’s just leave.  _I’ll_ buy you drinks.”

“That’s not the point. I worked hard to get that thing and I want it  _back_.”

“Why is it such a big deal?”

He is whining like a fucking baby and it’s driving her nuts. Does he not understand the principle of the thing?

“God, will you just help me look? We aren’t leaving until I get it back.”

Years of intense scrutiny have made Skye vicious. Her parents always seem to be right on top of her, the last place she wants them to be, always enforcing such binding rules that she had no choice but to completely subvert them. She got a fake ID for the same reason anyone does. The units need to  _relax_.

Miles pushes off of her, sighing. She goes back to work. God, they have a lot of files. She finds the cabinet marked  _Skye_.

It’s locked, but not extensively. Skye’s made herself good with a hairpin.

She frowns as she rifles through. There’s a lot of paperwork here. She didn’t really expect any of her childhood fingerpainting disasters to be saved, or any parentally-composed poems about her beauty and grace; but is it normal for there to be  _this much_ paperwork?

Some of it’s school records (she has a colorful delinquent history, spurred by a latent restlessness she doesn’t wish to think too much about); but after that it’s passports. A lot of them. And birth certificates with names she’s never heard of. Her heart thuds. Bank bonds in her name. Bank bonds in all the other names. Her fake is tucked in between a couple files there, but she doesn’t say a word.

In the very back, there’s a single sheet of paper. Letterhead with an orphanage’s name and address. Dated a few months after she was born. Addressed to her parents.  _Request to adopt_ : DENIED.

She sticks her fake in her bra and shuts that drawer carefully. She opens the next one. Financial records. The deed to the house. The deed to the cars. Receipts for taxable services. A contract and a NDA. With Miles’ name on it.

“I can’t find it, Skye,” Miles says, and she drops the paper instantly but doesn’t turn.

She swallows. Hard. “Why don’t you wait in the car?” she says, but it sounds strained. “I’ll be right out.”

"Are you okay, babe?" He asks, coming up behind her. She pushes back violently, involuntarily, swallowing hard. Her voice needs to sound normal, so  _color it_.

"Yeah, yeah I’m fine. I’m just going to grab my bag. "

He shrugs. She holds still while he leaves a kiss on her lips.

She listens for the front door to shut and when it does she doubles over. Everything is a lie. Everything. She crawls under her dad’s desk and lets her forehead rest against her knees. She feels nauseous. Fire is growing in her chest. Shuddering, jaw clenching. If she doesn’t hold on tight she might fall apart.

Her parents had always said she was the only kid they ever wanted. That statement mixed with their pretty shoddy parenting skills over the years makes Skye pretty doubtful that they ever tried to adopt another kid. Especially so close after she was born.

Which means.

She’s adopted.

But the papers say denied. Largely. In all caps. In blood red.

And she has more than one identity, her picture with different names on all the documents. This doesn’t make sense.

And Miles is a fucking hired sneak. She doesn’t want to believe that.  

She can’t let them know that she knows. Clearly there is a monumental secret here. Part of her feels vindicated, finally. She always knew something was off. Things were a little too clean. She’d always had the urge towards something else, she just didn’t know what.

She’d always felt wrong. She’d just chalked it up to her own fucked up head.

Now she knows.

Her parents won’t be back for hours. She could stay here and sort through everything, do some digging. But Miles is waiting. Miles will tell them. And she doesn’t have anywhere to go just yet.

Miles must be a fucking idiot to let her dig through those files.

He’ll get what he deserves.

Despite every urge in her body, she crawls out of there. She grabs her bag and walks out to the car, jumps in with a smile. Lets him buy her drinks and pretends to drink them. Stares directly into his eyes and beckons the lie, thumbs his cheeks to search for seams in his face. But there is nothing. And the suspicion burrows into her heart even further.

Well, that is unacceptable. If he’s going to give her a face, she’s gonna give one of hers. If her  _parents_ , so-called as they are, want to know her secrets, that’s what they’ll get. Any secret, true or fake. Except for this one. That’s a promise.  

 


	3. compromise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “That sounds a bit…criminal.”
> 
> “That’s because it is a bit criminal.”

 

They roll up to the diner they’ve been spending their days at for the past few weeks, but when everyone starts to get out of the car, Skye stops them suddenly.

“We need to go somewhere crowded for this.”

Ward frowns. “In case we need to escape?”

“So no one overhears us.” She gets a couple of raised eyebrows. She explains: “My— _They_ used to have me followed a lot.”

“Why?” Fitz asks, sounding alarmed.

“I thought it was because they didn’t trust me not to get into trouble, but…now I’m pretty sure it was to protect their precious alien cargo.” She shrugs, but it doesn’t carry the unaffected attitude she was intending.

“We can find somewhere else,” Ward says, knowing now is not the time to push it. They drive down a long strip of stores and end up at an incredibly hokey non-denominational American chain restaurant, bustling with exhausted parents and hyperactive kids and eager tourists. Despite the circumstances, Fitz’s eyes light up.

“This place is incredible,” he breathes.

“This place sucks,” Skye snorts. “It’s perfect.”

The host looks less than happy to seat four bedraggled teens, but a long stare from Ward moves him along quickly.

“I want one of everything,” Fitz says.

“Wait until after the payoff,” Skye says, elbowing him, and his enthusiasm is tempered when he is reminded.

“Payoff?” Jemma repeats. “That sounds a bit…criminal.”

“That’s because it is a bit criminal.” Skye looks down. She feels guilty about this, but she can’t think of anything better.

“Walk us through it, Skye,” Ward says, and she thinks it’s supposed to sound encouraging.

She takes a deep breath. “Okay. So my dad’s company is pretty shady - no surprises there. Technically they don’t produce anything; it’s just a front for funneling money into…you know.”

“The Pride,” Ward says, all rough edges.

“Right. So he had all of these off-shore accounts that sent money through shell corporations, yadda yadda. The point is: I took some of the money. For us.”

“How much?” Ward asks.

“A couple thousand.”

Fitz kicks her.

“Ow,” Jemma jumps.

“Sorry,” he says. “I was trying to kick Skye because she’s lying.”

Skye rolls her eyes. “More than a couple thousand.”

“Isn’t that going to raise suspicions?” Jemma asks, bringing her foot up onto the seat so she can rub her calf.

“Hopefully not?” She says, shrugging. Ward looks like he’s about to have a heart attack, so Skye cuts him off before he can start. “Look, I created an account at a local bank, faked the dates so it looks like it’s been there for a while. I used one of the names on my seemingly endless supply of fake passports, and I wired the money through a bunch of Swiss accounts first. Yes, it’s a risk. But it’s a manageable risk.

“Plus,” she says, peeking over at Fitz, “We have some security.”

Fitz, who had taken over kneading Jemma’s leg, stops and clenches his jaw.

Jemma notices. “What’s the security?” Her eyes flicker between the two of them. They seem to get guiltier and guiltier the longer she looks.

“You?” Skye says, wincing apologetically.

Jemma swallows this.

“For the record, I am against this,” Fitz says. But Jemma’s not looking at him anyway. She hasn’t immediately shut down the idea, so Skye counts that as a plus.

“I’m not agreeing to this either,” Ward prefaces. “But what’s your plan exactly?”

“We have to wait for a couple days for the transaction to clear. And then Jemma and I will go in and make a withdrawal. In cash. And then we walk away. That’s it.”

“You two can’t go in by yourselves.”

“Sure we can. It’d be a lot weirder if four  _children_ walk in and request a bunch of cash. It has to just be the two of us.”

“Hey, watch who you’re calling children,” Fitz protests.

She gives him a long look. “ _You’re_  the one who looks like six-year-old. People might think I’m your mother.”

“No one is going to think that,” Ward says dryly.

Skye’s about to launch into a tirade, but Jemma breaks in. “It’s less conspicuous, just the two of us,” she says. The three of them stop and look her over, waiting. “This seems like the safest plan.” She looks apprehensive.

“You probably won’t have to do anything,” Skye says. “You know I can take care of the lying. I would just feel safer with you next to me.”

It’s not meant to be a manipulation, but it does work.

“Okay,” Jemma says, resolute.

Fitz’s tower of onion rings arrives then, like deep-fried punctuation at the end of their conversation.

“I still have a question,” Ward says, brow set deeply.

“Hmm?”

“How did you know how to do all of that stuff?”

“What stuff?”

“The computer hacking stuff?”

“The R—” But she stops. And the life drains out of her face.

“Skye?”

She swallows. Hard.

“Sorry,” she says. “I just realized something.” But she doesn’t speak again.

“You don’t have to tell us,” Jemma says kindly, and Skye feels guilty for asking so much of her.

So she opens her mouth. “I had a…friend. That my parents were paying to spy on me. He was part of a group of hackers called The Rising Tide. They taught me. I thought they were good but now I think they might’ve been a part of this whole thing. The Pride.”

There is more to this story, but now, seeing her face, Ward feels too guilty about asking in the first place to press her.

“We’re free now,” he says quietly instead. He hopes she understands what that means to him. He thinks it probably means the same for all of them. As difficult, as terrifying as this has been, it was also absolutely necessary. They held the idea in their mouths for years, poised on their tongues, but now they consume. Sure, since they’ve arrived things haven’t gotten any easier. But now there is  _distance_ , sweet and satisfying. Now there is air to breathe.  _They are free now._

There’s something grateful about the look she hits him with, so he breathes out.

He clears his throat. “If we’re going to do this, we have to plan out every detail. Nothing can go wrong.” He looks each of them in the eyes, and sees deep seriousness reflected back. He is grateful.

“When will it be ready?” Fitz asks.

“Friday,” Skye replies.

“That’s two days,” Jemma says.

“I know, but.” She swallows. “After this we can be done. Done with all of the stealing and lying and running. We can try to be people again.”

“Friday,” Ward says, resolute. They need this. He will do everything he can to make sure it happens. He will not fail.

Friday.

 


	4. funeral (ward)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> FLASHBACK: Ward doesn’t really know what good means anymore.

 

Half of his family is gone now. And of course it’s the good half.

Although Grant doesn’t really know what  _good_ means anymore.

His suit is itchy. It’s one of Maynard’s hand-me-downs. Grant’s never needed one before, not now that he’s grown. He had one when he was a kid, for the last time he was in this church.

He doesn’t even know why Maynard has suits. Doesn’t matter, really. Nothing matters.

It’s a quiet service. They are a small family, made even smaller now; and they are very private. His dad has friends, people he worked with anyway, and a few of them are here. But for the most part it’s the three of them. The remaining Wards.

Grant doesn’t want to stand next to them. Not with the images in his head.

He stands at the end of the line; Dad, Maynard, Grant. His right side feels naked without Dana. Last time they were here Dana was barely a toddler and Grant was barely a child. Dana fussed, aching for something that no longer existed for them, so Grant held his hand and kept him quiet.

He feels so untethered now. He’s floating above the ground. After his mother, Dana was everything. As much as a little brother could infuriate, Grant swaddled him with love. Dana was the only person left towards whom he could direct the immense well of it. He remembers holding him at night, begging him to keep quiet, begging a child to see reason, so Dad wouldn’t open the door, shadow-faced in front of the hall light, and drag them down to the barn. That begging came from love. It didn’t do any good, in the end.

The lazy ceiling fan does nothing to break the heat of the short receiving line. Ward sweats without worry. Let him come off as a mess; he has no reason not to. He’s failed miserably, lost the one thing that kept him here.

Condolences mean nothing.

Everyone’s calling it an accident, too. That’s grinding the salt into him, that nobody knows. Nobody knows that the three of them are painted red in guilt.

They have limits.

He can’t remember the first time his dad dragged him down to the barn, locked the cuffs around his soft wrists, started his  _experiments_. They all blur together.  But he does remember the first time Dana was shackled there with him, confused and terrified. He remembers the screams.

“I’m doing this for you, Grant. For all of us. We have been given an incredible gift. But heaven gave us that gift with no explanation, in the unknowable way of God. So it’s our job to test it. To find our limits. So that we know what we can and can’t do for the Lord.”

Grant wonders if it’s disrespectful to put a clock in a church. But the universe doesn’t answer, and he stares as it ticks on, each tick the loudest thing he’s able to hear - until it’s time to leave.  

“Get in the car, boy.”

But he can’t move. He’s stuck in this spot, inches from the door handle, inches from saving himself a world of hurt. He looks his father in the eyes.

“Guess we know our limits now.”

On the scale of harm his father has done to him, a split lip in the church parking lot is nothing. He bleeds contentedly on the pavement before he is hoisted up and tossed in the backseat. He doesn’t bother righting himself. He lounges there, prone and revelling, each moment of inaction a protest.

Grant Ward was five when he lost his mother. Grant Ward is fifteen and has just lost his brother.

As soon as he is able, he will leave this place. That’s the only promise he knows he can keep now. 

 


	5. friday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "If someone even looks at you crooked, I will not hesitate to shoot lazer beams out of my eyes at them.”

 

“What the fuck are those?” Skye asks, peering into the front seat where Ward and Fitz are sitting.

“Ski masks,” Ward says, as though that was a perfectly reasonable thing for both he and Fitz to be struggling to get onto their heads right now.

“This isn’t a robbery,” Skye hisses, snatching the thing off his head. He startles. “We’re supposed to look totally normal. Put those things away! And stay in the car, for fuck’s sake.”

“Grumpy,” Fitz said, muffled by twisted black cotton. Skye ignored him and rolled her eyes.

This is  _her_ plan. If she’s on edge, it’s because she’s stressed beyond the point of laughing at them. She can’t do it. Not when there’s so much riding on this.

She returns to the far back of the van to see Jemma vibrating with anxiety. Skye sits down next to her and takes her hand. “Listen. It’s going to be okay. I know you only agreed to this because I asked. But I won’t let it get out of control. I’m going to keep you safe, too. That’s what sisters do.”

“Thanks,” she whispers.

“Besides,” Skye says. “I already have the paperwork ready to go. We just have to hand it to the teller. That’s it. We’ll be in and out in ten minutes.”

“Right,” Jemma says, gaining a little more confidence.

“But if someone even looks at you crooked, I will not hesitate to shoot lazer beams out of my eyes at them.”

Jemma smiles. “You can’t shoot lazers out of your eyes, Skye.”

“You don’t know that! You don’t know what I’d for my friends.”

Her mouth twitches. “Sure I do.”

Skye smiles. “Let’s do this.”

They open up the back doors and circle around to talk to the boys through the window.

“Make sure you stay in our sightline,” Ward says. “And don’t lie more than you have to.”

“We’ve got this, Ward. It’s just a bank,” Skye says. But she’s thankful.

“It’s going to be fine,” Fitz says, stilted and awkward and too loud, and they all know who he’s talking to. She smiles at the pavement.

“Be careful,” Ward says intently.

“We will.”

“Jemma?”

“We will,” she confirms.

He nods, and they turn.

The bank is average - it’s not even a particularly well-known chain, just something localized to southern California but not small enough to see them as strangers. Skye’s got her fake ID and passport in her bag, and she squares her shoulders as they enter. Faking confidence is enough. She does this all the time. She doesn’t spare a glance to look back at the van through the window. It’s better not to.

Jemma’s hands are shaking. Skye digs her wallet out of her purse and hands it to her, something to keep them still. She closes her eyes briefly in thanks. She feels nauseous. It’s not the crime - they’d been doing that for weeks. It’s the thought that maybe her parents were right when they said she couldn’t avoid using her powers. She didn’t want to relive what it felt like to — but it wouldn’t be anything like that, would it? She had always resisted. But this takes initiative. If things are going south, she’ll have to take over the teller’s actions seamlessly, to avoid raising suspicions.

Jemma grits her teeth. She must do this.

The line clears quick enough, and suddenly they’re in front of the teller, a kind-looking older lady. Her name tag says JUNE and features a sticker with a smiley face on it.

“Hi,” Skye is saying, “I need to make a withdrawal.” She digs through her bag and pulls out the withdrawal slip with the pilfered account number scrawled on it, along with the ID.

“Just one moment,” bank teller June says. She click-clacks loudly on the keyboard, and Jemma stops herself from holding her breath.

“Let me get your withdrawal. In quantities this large, we only give out hundreds. Is that alright?”

There is a undetectable moment where both of them rejoice, before Skye says, “That’s fine!”

Bank teller June leaves them, and it is then that they start to realize that something is about to go wrong.

“Skye,” Jemma says, staring at the next teller station over from them.

“I see it.”

Skye only has a moment to turn and look back at the boys before a warning shot is fired into the air.

“ _Everybody down on the ground_!”

They drop.

“God  _damn_ it,” Skye mutters as she and Jemma crouch near the floor.

“We have the worst luck with these things,” Jemma frowns.

“Apparently we attract a lot of criminal activity.”

There was only one at the counter, pointing a gun at the terrified teller, but three more have joined him now, masks pulled down over their faces.

One of the robbers shepherds them into the far end of the room. He kicks Skye to make her move faster.

“Ow! Fucking  _dickhole_.”

“Skye!”

The guy doesn’t seem bothered enough, though, so he stands guard stoically as they crawl further.

“I guess we’re going to be here for a while,” Jemma whispers.

“Oh, please. We could take them out in two minutes, tops.”

“What?”

“Maybe I’ll get to shoot some lazers out of my eyes after all.”

“You aren’t seriously suggesting using your powers in broad daylight in a room full of witnesses!” Jemma whisper-yells. “We  _just_ escaped, Skye. We’re nearly free. We can’t throw that away for a bunch of bank robbers!”

“What happened to the girl that was making a list of all the convenience stores we grifted?” She responds. “Suddenly this doesn’t align with your moral code?”

“I am  _trying_ to protect us. We can’t give ourselves away like this.”

“Fine. What about your powers?” Skye said, one eyebrow arched. “Can you go undetected?”

“I could take one of them, maybe, but that’s not the point!” Jemma said. “We’re supposed to be assimilating. We can’t go running around trying to be vigilantes.”

“We have the opportunity to do something good.”

Jemma looks down.

“What if someone gets hurt in here because we didn’t step in?”

Jemma swallows hard. “Neither of us have adequate control over our powers, and the boys are stuck outside. If this goes wrong, it’s going to go  _horribly wrong_.”

“If Captain America happened to be making a deposit at your bank while it was being robbed, wouldn’t you want him to do something?”

“We’re not heroes, Skye.” There’s a tremor in her voice Skye didn’t expect. It seems like Jemma’s thought about this before.

“We’re not villains either.”

Jemma closes her eyes for a long moment.

“I can only take over one of them at a time. But I have an idea.”

“Cool. Do the one who poked me in the ass first.”

Jemma sighs. Skye watches reverently as Jemma’s gaze focuses. A sharpness comes over her face that in any other context might mean trouble. Across the room, one of the bank robbers drops his weapon hand, goes automatically blank.

“Holy shit,” Skye breathes.

She watches as the robber looks down at his gun, clicks the magazine release. Slowly he walks closer to them and deposits it in Jemma’s hand.

Jemma sends him away to two others, who are loudly forcing the bank manager to open the safe. The remaining guard, on the other side of the room, goes blank, disables his weapon as well. He crosses the room, attracting some attention from the cowering patrons and staff, to hand the clip to Jemma again.

But she’s not fast enough.

“Ernie? Ernie,  _what are you doing_?”

When he doesn’t answer right away, two guns get pointed at Jemma.

Immediately, Skye can feel a burning, hot and heavy, in her chest. Nuclear. “Lower the guns,” Skye mutters through clenched teeth, “Or things are about to go  _horribly wrong_.”

The message is meant for Jemma, but one of the guns swings Skye’s way in anger.

“What did you say, bitch?”

At this point, every pair of terrified eyes is on them, and Jemma is shaking with the effort not to scream. They’ve certainly blown their covers. And they might be blown to pieces.

“Jemma,” Skye warns.

The hand threatening Skye drops. And then the hand threatening Jemma. But the empty man with his clip outstretched suddenly comes back to life, confused. And the first man comes stumbling into the room, equally puzzled.

“Skye, I can’t hold them,” Jemma rushes.

Skye pulls her backwards, leading her towards the door so she could keep her concentration. Jemma had been right. They are not heroes. Time to bail.

But then Skye trips backwards, which makes Jemma trip, and then two men left with semi-automatics are suddenly granted their free will again. The men lunge for them and Skye fills with rage and  _that’s_ when the blue 1993 Ford Taurus comes crashing through the window.

 


	6. obedience (jemma)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> FLASHBACK: It’s not a talent. It’s a curse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for abuse, mind control, blood, vomit, and guns.

 

"Jemma, darling, come upstairs for a moment."

Jemma wants to ignore her mum. She’s never been able to.

Her friends are staring. Never once had one of them been allowed upstairs while their parents are meeting. She doesn’t look at them and climbs the stairs slowly.

"Mum, Skye and I were playing Mario Kart—"

“Skye?”

“Mary wants to be called Skye now.”

"You can go back to it after you spend some time with the grown-ups. It’s your time to shine."

They say that every time. Every time they make her do something she doesn’t want to do. Every time they make her take someone over. This is all practice, they say, for when it’s her turn to shine.

Jemma doesn’t want to shine.

The room is too cold. The adults sit in a circle at a big wooden table.

"Hello, girly," Ward’s dad says. She doesn’t respond. Jemma doesn’t think he’s a good guy.

"We hear you have a talent," Skye’s mum says.

It’s not a talent. It’s a curse. She doesn’t respond. She stares at the floor.

Her dad enters with a confused-looking lady. She has pretty hair and an empty face. Jemma’s lip wobbles. She can already feel the tendrils of her mind, sad and scared and dulled by Mummy’s medicine.

"Make her sing a funny song, Jemma," Dad says, releasing the girl in the middle of the room. The stranger sways.

Jemma doesn’t move. Neither does the lady.

"Jemma," Dad warns.

She feels the fringes of Mummy’s mind invading hers and she jumps at the agony of it. The lady starts singing Mary Had a Little Lamb. The room laughs in amazement. Jemma’s tummy hurts.

"That’s very impressive," Fitz’s dad says gruffly.

Dad brings out a gun and places it on the table. “Make her pick it up, Jemma.”

Jemma feels very sick. She doesn’t move. Neither does the lady.

"Jemma, do as your told," Mummy says.

But she doesn’t have to. Mummy’s pressure invades her brain. It squeezes her down to the floor. The lady picks up the gun and the pushing stops.

“Make her point it at her head,” Mummy says.

Jemma’s going to throw up soon. She lies down, cheek pressed to cold floor. The lady does nothing.

“She’s resistant,” Ward’s dad says.

“She has a moral code,” Dad says, and he sounds disappointed.

“There’s still time to break her of that,” Skye’s mum says.

“Jemma, do what you’re told. You know I won’t ask again.”

But that’s the trick. Mummy never asks. She just pushes, paints everything in her head black until it’s too dark to see out. The blackness comes again, and she tightens, arms around her middle, trying to hold it off.

Jemma’s a smart girl. In moments like these she thinks of all the ways she can leave her family behind. She’s already skipped three grades and she’s still bored. She could go to uni here in the States. She could reroute some cash from Dad’s account and buy a train ticket. She could disappear, if she tried.

She’s not strong enough. Once the darkness takes over she gives in. The lady points the gun to her head. The pressure disappears.

Jemma feels the bile rise in her throat. She chokes it back down.

She stares at the lady. The lady slowly lowers the gun from her head, releases the cartridge and sets it on the table. Jemma’s so glad she looked at those designs. Otherwise she wouldn’t have known what to do.

The gun, now empty, goes back to the lady’s head. The table looks impressed. Jemma gags.

She doesn’t want to make them mad. But she can’t do this.

“Smart girl,” Fitz’s dad says.

Dad goes round the table, takes the gun from the lady and puts the cartridge back in. “Don’t play games, Jemma,” he says disapprovingly.

This is not a game. The lady takes the gun and points it back at her head.

“Make her pull the trigger, Jemma.”

There is a loud gasp and a clang. She can’t lift her head to see where it came from.

“Leo?” Fitz’s dad bellows as he stands suddenly. The name sounds strange. Doesn’t his dad know no one calls him that?

There is a scrambling in the air vent on the far wall. Jemma can’t focus on it.

“He’s gone, Tom,” Mummy says placatingly. Jemma grimaces. She doesn’t want Mummy to be able to feel Fitz’s brain. It’s very special.

“Focus, Jemma,” she says now. “Make her pull the trigger.”

_No no no no no no no no no no no no no._

The scariest thing about Mummy is that she doesn’t have to look to control you. She doesn’t have to move.

The pressure sets in. Jemma imagines herself strong and solid. It helps for a while. But she always loses.

Daddy crouches down next to her, waiting for her to give in.

The gun goes off, and Daddy covers her eyes and her ears quickly as they all start to speak in unison. Jemma waits for it to be over. She can feel some shuffling around, and when Daddy lets her go the lady is gone, and the blood of a ghost is smeared on the floor.

Jemma vomits.

 


	7. a lack of self-control

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “A _robbery_? Oh, _come on_!”

 

Fitz has to hold Ward back when they hear the gunshot. They both jump, startled, but it’s Ward that tries to get out of the car automatically.

“Wait, Ward,  _wait_ ,” Fitz says, tugging at a fistful of his t-shirt. “It could have been anything. They will  _kill us_ if we go in for no reason.”

Ward sighs. “You’re right.”

They look back to the window, and after a short moment fear vicegrips Ward’s heart. “I don’t see them.”

“Maybe it’s done. Maybe they’re heading for the door.”

“No—there!” He points. “They’re on the ground.”

“What!” FItz yells, and he half crawls into Ward’s lap to get a better look. “Why are they on the ground?”

“It  _was_ a gunshot,” Ward says slowly, realizing. “It’s—”

“ _No._ ”

“They’re in the middle of—”

“A  _robbery_? Oh,  _come on!_ ” Fitz bellows. “Of course we’d have the worst timing in the world.”

“We have to go in,” Ward says, and he starts to get out of the car again, but again Fitz holds him back.

“There’s no way to get in without getting shot at!” FItz says.

“I can take a bullet.”

“I can’t!”

“I’ll shield you.”

“I don’t want you to!” FItz says. “And it’s a moot point anyway; they girls’ll still kill us if we blow their cover.”

“The cover is blown, Fitz. Even on the off-chance they got the money and this  _armed robbery_ ends peacefully, the cops are going to want to talk to them. Their faces are on the security cameras.”

“We’re going to have to leave again, aren’t we?” Fitz says, and he sounds so dejected Ward’s heart hurts.

He nods.

“We still can’t go in,” Fitz says quietly. “We might make everything worse. There are innocent people in there, and they can’t take a bullet like you can.”

Ward nods again. He thinks for a moment. “We can at least get closer,  keep a better eye on them.”

Fitz agrees, so they end up in the bushes outside of one of the far windows - far away from the girls but with a wide enough view that they can see everything. Jemma and Skye seem to be arguing emphatically, and Jemma’s doing a lot of nervous gesturing. It’s kind of a miracle none of the bad guys have told them to shut up yet.

“They’re coming up with a plan?”

“Looks like it,” Ward responds.

They watch as the mood shifts, as one of the robbers approaches them blankly and gives Jemma a gift.

Ward’s eyes widen, and Fitz notices. “I know. It’s terrifying.”

He doesn’t respond, just turns to see the next robber start to approach her. The boys see before the girls do that it’s not going to work; the attention of the two active robbers has been caught and they’re about to approach. Fear rises between them.

“What do we do?” Fitz breathes.

Ward says nothing. He wants to say  _I don’t know_ but he can’t bring himself to.

The girls have stood up now, arms raised in surrender but the men are still angry and they’re pointing guns at Jemma. One of the guns swings to Skye.

Air stops flowing.

Fitz is going blind with terror but Ward is too transfixed on his own rage to notice. Skye is pulling Jemma backwards towards the door but they fall and suddenly Ward has smashed his fist through the glass window in front of him. But the sound is completely drowned out by the roar of the phantom-piloted engine smashing through the window next to them.

 

 

 

“That’s my car!” Bank teller June is shrieking. “That’s my car!”

Skye pulls herself up from the wreckage groggily. There’s a lot of chaos, which matches the ripping pain in her side. Everyone’s yelling. The hostages are not trying to escape in the confusion through the giant car-shaped hole in the wall; while the robbers are cutting their losses and grabbing their stupidly-large sacks of money.

And she can hear police sirens in the distance.

Fuck.

She starts to move and suddenly Ward is at her side, helping her stand.

“What the hell happened?”

“Fitz sent a car through the window.”

Her gaze sharpens, swings quickly to Fitz, who is helping Jemma up. His face is guilty, but not guilty enough.

“ _Why?_ ”

“It was an accident.”

Skye wants to start yelling but Ward cuts her off. “We have to get out of here.” They start to pick their way out slowly. Skye can tell by Ward’s shaking hand on her arm that he’s dying to just throw the two of them over his shoulder and hightail it out.

“You’re bleeding,” Jemma says suddenly, looking at Skye in concern.

“So are you,” Skye says, once she looks back at her.

“We’ll figure it out when we’re in the car,” Ward says gruffly, and it betrays even more worry.

The police show up too soon, so they have to go around the block to get to the van, and Skye’s injured side gets pressed into Ward in an attempt to hide the fact that she’s bleeding through her shirt. It burns like hell, but she grits her teeth.

Fitz, behind them, is wary of Jemma’s arm, which at this point is gushing, but she’s moving too slowly for him not to wrap his arm around her and help her along, if only so they can keep up with the others.

He whispers in her ear: “I’m sorry about the car.”

“It’s okay—” she starts weakly, but he continues quickly.

“It wasn’t exactly a conscious decision.”

She thinks through the implications of that to try and ignore the pain.

“I didn’t know you could move anything that big.”

“Me either,” he says. “I don’t know what came over me. I thought they were going to do something to you.”

“Well you certainly have a unique way of diffusing a situation,” she stutters, barreling through the words quickly.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” He’s still whispering, bridge of his nose in her hair as they trudge slowly along. She just squeezes his hand.

When they finally make it to the car, Ward jumps in front quickly and starts driving, trying to find a place where no one would look at them. He checks the rearview to see Fitz’s hands shaking near Skye’s wound, shirt drawn up to reveal skin and glass and blood.

Fitz swallows thickly. “You both need stitches.”

“We can’t go to the hospital,” Jemma says weakly. It sounds like she’s trying not to pass out.

“Stay awake, Jemma,” Ward says, and the words are out of his mouth before he can think about them.

“It’s not the blood, it’s…”

“It tires you out?”

She doesn’t answer, but he assumes the affirmative.

“Ward?” Skye says. She doesn’t finish her thought, but he knows she’s asking what they should do now.

“I’ve never done stitches before,” is all he can think to say.

“You heal too fast for stitches,” Skye says breathlessly.

“Wait,” Fitz says. “What about the guy?”

“What guy?”

“That guy we met, the one that was hitting on Jemma.”

“He wasn’t hitting on me,” she breaks in, even though she knows Trip was definitely hitting on her.

“Yes, he was,” Fitz says. “Don’t worry, I’m not jealous or anything—”

“Fitz,” Ward cuts in. “Focus.”

“Right, well, he said he was in medical school, right? He can probably do stitches.”

“Do you still have his number?” Skye asks.

He pulls the slip of paper out of his pocket, holds it up, waits for permission.

Ward pauses for a long moment. “Do it.”

Ward pulls quickly into a mall parking lot and they hold their breath while Fitz dials.

“…Hi, is this Trip? I don’t know if you remember, we met a few days ago. This is going to sound a bit strange but…we need your help.”

 


	8. last good day (fitz)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> FLASHBACK: “People think I’m weird.”

 

The sky is overcast; the mugginess is clinging to him; but he sits in silence as usual and waits. The headmistress is standing out there with him like he might run off, as though he has somewhere to go.

Fitz only likes two places: the back aisle of the electronics shop down the road, and the woods behind his house. That’s it. Those are the only places he would run to.

But frankly, he’s had the shite kicked out of him, and even though school is only a mile away from home, he doesn’t really feel up to walking it right now. So he has to wait for his father.

He doesn’t want to wait for his father.

He sees the big station wagon from far off, swinging a little too easily through the car park, and he feels the headmistresses clenched hand loosen on his shoulder slightly. This isn’t the first time she had met with his father.

But the car pulls over and someone else gets out and he can’t honestly believe it.

“Hi, lovey,” he hears, and a tight ball of emotion sticks his throat as his eyes widen.

“Mum?”

Headmistress looks immediately uncomfortable. Everyone knows Mary Fitz.

“What are you doing here?” he asks. He doesn’t really need to know though. Rare excitement is bubbling up in him.

“Oh, your father had to run out. I got the call so I thought I’d come get you myself.”

Mum usually stays in the house.

The headmistress asks to speak to her for a moment, and the chat tensely off to the side. Fitz climbs into the car. A bad day has just turned into a good one.

Suddenly Mum is back by his side, buckling her seatbelt.

“You hungry, monkey?” she asks. “How about some chips?”

He nods. He’s a little bit in awe. This never happens. He nods again.

They pull over at a chips place down the road, and they eat at a picnic table with a big red umbrella. Mum is funny, truly funny. She makes him laugh through the whole thing.

Until she asks: “Do you want to talk about what happened at school today?”

He knows he’s not getting out of this, so he shrugs.

“People think I’m weird.”

Mum chuckles a bit. “It’s okay to be weird.”

“Not if it gets you beat up!” he protests.

“Well, maybe you should stop stealing other kid’s supplies to build rockets,” she counters.

“I only did that once,” he grumbles.

“I know, monkey face.”

She gives him a big smile, and then she places her hands on the table. “We should probably be heading out.”

“What are you going to tell him?” he asks.

“The truth,” she says. His heart sinks for a moment. “That I took you out of school so we could get chips.”

He smiles again.

They gather up their trash and head back to the car. But that’s when the trouble starts. The car stutters angrily. Once, twice, three times. Mum sighs.

“Well come on, then, let’s take a look under the hood.” They both climb out and around to open the car up.

Fitz can tell what’s happening almost immediately; anyone with a trained eye could tell, but he can also feel the metal humming, electricity flowing through wiring. The distributor timing is off, and it should be pretty simple to fix but he has to do it the proper way, the normal way.

He’s fixed on the problem for the moment, so he doesn’t see his mother watching him silently.

“Go on, love.” His eyes snap up to hers and she gives him a knowing look. His jaw drops open in shock, but she doesn’t say another word. Somehow she just knows.

When he gets ahold of himself, Fitz focuses back in on the mechanics, and suddenly there is a series of clicks that tell him it’s fixed.

“Well. That was simple,” Mary says easily, giving him a pat on the shoulder and shutting the hood.

Fitz stares at the boot for a long moment. This is the best day he’s had in a long time. Once he’s decided that, he’s content to crawl back into the car and go home.

Anyway, that’s the last time Fitz sees his mum. For a long, long while.

 


	9. ally

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “So,” he starts, after a long moment of quiet. “What’s your guys’ deal, exactly? Group marriage? Run away from a cult? Is this your Rumspringa or something?”

 

They have Trip meet them on the beach, van doors flung open, burning against the sunset.

“This isn’t really the most sanitary place to do this,” he says first. “You haven’t found a swanky apartment to bleed in yet?”

Skye chuckles, breathless from holding it together.

“Who’s first?”

Skye points to Jemma at the same moment Jemma points to Skye.

“It’s just my arm, Skye; I’m fine.”

“So am I,” Skye says, but it’s clear she’s lying. Trip gives her a look, so she stops her protests.

“Someone’s gotta hold her steady. This isn’t going to be fun.” Trip eyes Ward, who’s standing guard near the open doors. After a long moment he crawls in behind Skye, her head in his lap, hands on her shoulders, holding her down.

Trip lifts her shirt over her midriff. There is a cluster of tiny glass fragments making her bleed profusely from her stomach. “It isn’t too deep,” he says after a moment. “Although you probably figure that out by now, considering you’d have passed out from blood loss.”

“Well, that’s good,” Skye says.

“But I’m going to have to pull them out one by one, and I don’t have an sedatives so—”

“It’s fine. Go ahead.”

He gives her a nod and gets to work, large gloved hands delicately tweezing piece by piece.

“So,” he starts, after a long moment of quiet. “What’s your guys’ deal, exactly? Group marriage? Run away from a cult? Is this your Rumspringa or something?”

“Our what?” Fitz asks.

“Rumspringa? It’s when Amish kids leave their families for the first time so they can see how terrible and great the outside world is. Then they choose if they want to go back or leave the community permanently,” he explains. “Although I’m guessing that’s not what you guys are doing.”

“We made our choice,” Ward says gruffly, trying to put an end to the questioning.

Trip sighs. “Of course I stumble upon a bunch of runaways.” He shakes his head semi-fondly, as if this is a typically Trip thing to do.

He pauses his work, eyeing them. “That was your opportunity to refute that.”

Somehow the four of them know to stay silent.

Maybe they can have Trip. Maybe they can just have this guy who drove forty-five minutes to patch them up. The guy who swallowed their ridiculous lies and gave them the invitation to call anyway. Maybe they can have this one friend in the universe.

The air is so still and the purple-pink-orange of the world is so bright. Trip shakes his head again, smiles to himself.

“Are you at least going to tell me how you got these injuries?”

Skye glances up at Ward for a moment. Then: “There was a bank robbery today.”

“I heard.”

“Jemma and I were inside.”

He processes this information. “I heard someone drove a car through the window.”

“Jemma and I were inside when the car went through the window.”

“Now who in their right mind would drive a car through the window?” Trip says, laughing.

Fitz, who had been tracing shapes on Jemma’s forearm, stops dead. “It was an accident!” And then he remembers himself. “I’m sure. I mean. I’m sure it was an accident.”

Ward rubs a hand over his face.

Trip seems impressed. “That’s hardcore.”

“Thank you.”

“Ugh, Fitz,” Jemma mutters.

“Could we focus on the task at hand, please?” Skye says quickly, gritting her teeth.

“Right, my bad,” Trip says, going back to work. Skye grunts in pain, and Ward’s hands tighten over her shoulders, and her hands tighten over his wrists.

“Jesus, fuck, you were right about this not being fun.”

“Sorry, girl. We’re almost done.”

It only takes a few more minutes before Trip is flattening a clean white bandage to her middle.

“Nothing strenuous until those heal up,” he orders.

She nods. “Thank you.”

He turns. “Jemma?” She moves forward. “You don’t have to lay back. Just try not to move too much.”

“Okay.”

“Do you want to hold my hand?” Fitz asks.

“Don’t worry; I have a very high pain tolerance,” Jemma responds.

His face remains incredibly anxious. “I would kind of like to hold your hand anyway.”

There is a bubble of air on which she rests. She tries not to smile. She lets him do it anyway.

“Oh, I see,” Trip starts playfully. He gently rucks up the sleeve of her shirt. “You two are a thing.”

Fitz says  _not really_ at the same time Jemma says nothing. But he grips her hand tighter.

She is terrified. She swallows it.

Trip gets to a work, and after a few minutes he steps back. “You’re not flinching at all.”

“High pain tolerance,” she reminds him.

“ _Very_ high.” He looks concerned. She ignores it.

He finishes cleaning her up silently, knowing somehow not to push anymore. The boys wait outside while Jemma and Skye change into clothes that haven’t been completely ruined by their own insides.

“Who wants food?” Fitz asks cheerfully when they emerge.

Skye snorts. “Only you, Fitz.”

“Hey, you two need food, because you’re weak.” Skye raises an eyebrow. “From the blood loss!” He specifies quickly.

Skye shrugs, tossing a look to Jemma. “We lose blood all the time. We’re fine.”

It takes him a minute to understand her meaning. “ _Oh_. Well. Yeah. I suppose that’s true. Food?”

Jemma smiles a bit. “Trip, would you like to accompany us to the diner?”

“I’d be happy to.”

“Well, that’s settled then,” Fitz says.

The diner they had been frequenting is just up the beach, so with a brief pause so Jemma could climb ecstatically onto Ward’s back, they make their way through the fading sunlight to the neon signs.

“This place is tight,” Trip says, grinning at the fakey jukebox in the corner.

“Ugh, you’re just as bad as Fitz,” Skye says.

“Hey, I have an appreciation for Americana,” Fitz says defensively.

“This country is corrupt,  _Leopold_ ,” Skye starts in. Jemma rolls her eyes, and Ward seems to deflate. “The  _government_ is—”

“Not this again!” Fitz says.

“So you’re an activist?” Trip says.

“People are being lied to by their government. I don’t think that’s fair. So yeah, you could say I’m an activist.”

“Ignore her,” Fitz says. “She’s always going on these socialist rants. Come on, let’s go look at the jukebox.”

Trip slips out of the big round booth, and Fitz follows after him. Jemma notices something fall to the ground as they depart, so she leans out of the booth to pick it up.

“Trip, you…” she starts, but her voice dies and he and Fitz don’t seem to hear her.

“What, Jemma?” Ward says, noticing the look on her face.

“SHIELD.”

“What?”

“Trip is with SHIELD.”

Skye takes the ID card out of Jemma’s hand while Ward immediately starts scoping out the exits. The van is too far away for them to truly give him the slip. But the real problem is that he’s seen their faces. He knows their names. They’ll probably have to ditch the van altogether. God, Fitz looked so upset earlier, but they don’t have a choice. They’re done in this town before they even started.

“It says he’s a cadet,” Jemma murmurs.

“Oh, so he’s a government spy-in-training,” Skye hisses. “That makes me feel better.”

“We have to get out of here,” Ward says, voice strained. “You guys head for the van, I’ll get Fitz and follow you.”

“We are  _not_ splitting up,” Skye says sharply.

“It’s temporary,” he shoots back. “We can’t raise suspicions. I’ll make up an excuse.”

“And if he doesn’t take the excuse?”

“I’ll knock him out.”

“Ward, he probably knows thirty ways to kill you!” Skye  says, brow frustrated with worry.

“I’m hard to kill.”

“Oh,  _god_ ,” she says, “you have to stop saying things like that.”

Ward stops dead, hardness breaking down into expression. This is the youngest he’s ever looked to them.

After a long moment, Jemma pulls them out. “Now’s not the time for that conversation. Ward, get Fitz. We’ll meet you at the back door, and we’ll go together, alright?”

Ward nods, decided.

But as soon as they stand, there is yelling and commotion; the mostly empty diner is suddenly full of men in black armor, big guns raised.

Skye sends a terrified, urging look to Jemma, but it is cut off by a man’s voice.

“I wouldn’t try anything, Miss Simmons,” says a man, moving to stand in front of them. A woman flanks his left side, regarding them severely.

“Sorry for the entrance,” he continues. “It was supposed to be just me and Agent May here, but after we saw what you did in that bank, we thought the extra backup might be necessary.” He regards each of them. “Are you going to prove us right?”

They say nothing.

“My name is—”

“Uncle Phil?” says a voice from the side of the room. A cluster of agents shepherd Fitz and Trip over to join the rest of them.

“Trip?” he responds, seeming genuinely surprised. “I know you and Sharon used to play Covert Ops, but I’m pretty sure your grandmother put an end to that.”

“She did,” he says, confused.

“Then why are you hanging out with four known fugitives?”

“Because I didn’t know they were fugitives? I just thought they were cute and homeless.”

“We’re not homeless,” Skye mutters. “We have a van.”

Phil gives her a look, eyebrow raised, and then turns back to Trip. “You wanted to adopt them?”

Trip drops his arms, no longer fearing the intrusion. “Who do you think I learned that from?”

The woman, Agent May, speaks up now: “I think he means you.”

“Fair enough,” he responds, mirthful. “Trip, go get on my Bus and I won’t tell your parents you snuck off of base.”

Trip seems somewhat relieved. “Yes, sir.”

As Trip leaves, he turns to the rest of them. “As I was saying, my name is Phil Coulson. I am an agent of SHIELD. We just want to talk.”

“Your guns are doing plenty of talking,” Ward says tightly.

“And we’re getting the message, loud and clear,” Skye continues.

“And you’ll continue to get that message until we know we can trust you not to use your powers on us.”

“How long do you think that will be exactly?” Fitz growls.

“That is entirely up to you, Mr. Fitz,” Agent Coulson says. “The four of you have a choice now. The question is  _are you brave enough to make it_?”

 


End file.
